"You must be most pleased with yourself," I snapped as I marched through the foyer of the royal wing. Kiran's long strides caught up to me quickly with a clank of armour and sword.

"I am a little, actually. Yes." I chanced a glance at him and his eyes sparkled down at me in amusement, deep dimples appearing in his cheeks. I huffed and focused forward before an unwelcome blush could claim my cheeks.

"You knew before the Theatre, didn't you. You knew exactly where to find me."

"Of course," he said. I could almost hear his grin spreading wider.

"So you're a pervert and a stalker. That's just wonderful."

He laughed, the sound bouncing through the vaulted ceiling of the foyer. "I'm neither a pervert nor a stalker. But I did need to get to know my ward." I stopped dead just before the passage to the Great Hall, glowering up at Kiran.

"Your ward? I'm not a child. Does it look to you like I need your protection?"

"Maybe not from others," he said, tilting his head as he regarded me with sparkling glacial eyes, "but definitely from yourself."

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, despite the throbbing pain in my breastbone, glaring up at him. "You... are... unbelievable." With that, I turned and stalked off down the passageway, Kiran quickly matching pace. "How did you know who I was, at the Theatre?" I demanded.

"After the Blackmoors, when the Queen asked Scipia for aid, she requested protection for the Diviners as one of her priorities. We were told that one Diviner in particular had a rare gift not seen among others of her kind. A powerful Diviner that could summon beasts to her aid. One whose abilities were not fully realized. She requested the best of our guardians to protect her. Captain Donseer asked me to take that role." A small group of courtiers started toward us from the opposite end of the hallway and Kiran suddenly seemed much too large for the narrow space. We stepped aside, allowing them to pass, Kiran positioning himself in front of me while he gave them a curt nod. He waited until they were several paces beyond us before walking again.

"I started asking a few friends in the area if they knew of the Diviners here," he continued. "Rolfe had heard of your abilities and said he thought you snuck out regularly to fight in the pit. He caught a glimpse of a very unusual spectator hiding in the rafters of the Theatre a few years ago, intently watching a match between a masked woman and a bald, scarred, smelly brute named Balthazar." Kiran smiled down at me, dimples faint in his cheeks. "When I saw you fight, I knew. Your training, your grace, your ability to take the blows you did and still fight - it had to be you. I agreed to Donseer's request as soon as I got back to the castle last night."

"Why though?" I asked, slowing to a stop as we entered the Great Hall. "You know what the oath demands. I will be your... ward... for the rest of your life. If you fail to protect me and I die, the kingdom...they will kill you." A wedge of concern penetrated my earlier irritation as I looked up at Kiran. I didn't wish that risk for anyone, especially not on my behalf. All amusement vanished from Kiran's eyes, an unreadable expression hardening his features.

"I was asked, I was not ordered to take this responsibility. I understand what you're capable of and I knew the repercussions of the decision I was making. This chance to protect you, it... it is my highest honour."

All of my concern from moments ago evaporated. I swallowed thickly. "I see. What an honour to guard the kingdom's most powerful weapon," I said through a sardonic grin. Kiran's eyes flashed in response like twin white flames.

"I took an oath to protect you, Quinn," he said, taking a step toward me, then another. "Not a weapon. Not a Diviner. You."

"We'll see about that," I said with a smirk, holding his eye contact for a moment longer before turning on my heel and striding toward the center of the Great Hall. We walked on in silence, the only sound between us our footfalls on the polished stone floor and the clank, clank, clank of Kiran's sword and armour.

As we passed through the heavy oak doors and into the courtyard, the mid-morning sun was inviting, bright and warm, and I stopped momentarily as I tilted my face to the sky and tried to absorb everything good from my place in the world. I closed my eyes to memorize it all. The sound of sparrows, the trickle of the fountain, the feeling of Skye's warm scales on my skin. The sounds of people passing by as they chatted about pleasant things like bread or the wheat harvest or their children. The heavy clop-clop of a draft horse's hooves, it's rhythmic gate faithful and steady, just as Sage's had been. One more step away from that moment would be another toward the Oraculum, and I would need something good to hold onto.

"Are you all right?" Kiran asked quietly. I opened my eyes and met his but couldn't reply. Breaking his gaze, I looked across the courtyard in the direction of the Oraculum. Skye shifted around my neck and down my left arm, the anticipation building in her, too. I started to shut out her thoughts as she was already sending an onslaught of words and images and feelings to me. Pleas and desperation. I built up a wall in my mind, thicker than the widest castle rampart, and I would hold it closed as long as I could to keep her out. "Quinn?..." A gentle hand landed on my sleeve, startling me. I looked up at Kiran, his head angled downward to capture my gaze, his brow creased. I caught the moment his eyes flicked to the top section of my chest that was now left uncovered in Skye's wanderings. His frown deepened.

"What? Don't like what you see?" I asked, tugging up the top of my dress to better hide the edge of the dark bruise. A mirthless smile tugged at Kiran's lips, no dimples in sight.

"Not this time."

I looked away again to the dark archway on the opposite end of the courtyard, the passage to the Oraculum. "Come on, pervert," I said with a grin that faded as quickly as it appeared. I hesitated before finally taking a step. "Let's get this over with."

We passed through the courtyard and under the archway, the keystone carved with an 'O', inlaid with obsidian. The dark passageway led through the stone wall and to a set of stairs that spiraled downward beneath the courtyard. The stairway opened to a huge natural cavern nearly the size of the castle itself, lit by torches spaced every ten feet. The walls glistened with moisture and crystals. The air seemed to never move here, and the thick smell of smoke and incense and sweaty rock made my stomach churn. We slowed as we approached a low, round, windowless building constructed within the space. The walls and roof were made of black stone, the door of mahogany carved with ancient spells. The air around it seemed to shimmer. To the left of the door was an empty hook. To the right of the door hung a cage with metal bars encased in layers of thick leather. The door to the cage was open. I looked over at Kiran as his eyes scanned over the space around him, taking everything in. He felt me watching and met my gaze with a hard but curious expression.

"Tell me, Elysian. Do you have an Oracle in Scipia?"

Kiran's eyes darkened a little. "No. We have a mage, who came here with us, but not an Oracle."

"Perhaps you're fortunate then," I said. I smiled briefly as I started untying the laces on my left shoulder that attached my sleeve to my dress. "Did you know that we've been through three mages since I've been here?" I asked. Kiran shook his head. The ties loosened and I slipped my left sleeve off. I heard the subtle intake of Kiran's breath as I hung the first sleeve on the hook beside the door. The filigreed tattoo of black and embedded gold wound from my wrist to mid-forearm, the metal reflecting the torchlight. Kiran took a step toward me, staring down at my arm. His hand raised slightly and his fingers tensed. I could tell he wanted to touch my skin but he restrained himself.

"The viper killed the first mage the very first time I came to tithe. I brought the snake in with me. No one knew any better. When the tithing started, when the pain started, Skye came to my aid. She bit the mage on the face first, then on the arm, on the neck... everywhere she could, until my pain subsided. I watched the mage writhe in Skye's grasp until her face became waxen and poisoned froth bubbled from her blue lips. I watched until her last breath," I said. I smiled faintly, working the laces on my right arm. "The Queen knew she could not kill Skye in retaliation, since I would not have been able to control my rage at her loss. I was still just a child after all." I slipped the other sleeve off of my arm and hung it next to the first. The matching tattoos glittered on that arm too, beautiful reminders of painful memories. "That's when the Queen had the cage installed."

Kiran walked over to the enclosure, his fingers running over the leather-coated bars. He felt the dimples and tears in the hide from Skye's attempts to rip the cage apart. He looked back to me, a muscle feathering along his jaw. I started unwrapping Skye from my body as Kiran stepped back a safe distance toward the door. Skye was already writhing and agitated, but she complied nonetheless. "The next time I came to tithe, I put the viper in the cage. It prevented her from coming into the Oraculum, of course. But when it was done and I left with my first marks on my arms, Skye caught the scent of the mage on my skin. That night, she hunted the mage and killed her while she slept."

I placed Skye in the cage and she hissed at me defiantly as I closed the door. Tears threatened to burn my eyes as they always did when I placed her in the cage. My heart pained for her helplessness, her desperation. I shored up the wall in my mind, keeping her thoughts safe in the distance.

"With the next mage, they knew to mask her scent and hide her appearance. So, after a few tithings, Skye tried something new. She bit me as I placed her in the enclosure," I said, walking a few steps toward Kiran. I lifted my right hand so he could see the twin scars on the pulp of my palm where her fangs had sunk deep into my flesh. "She wasn't trying to kill me, of course. That's how I found out I was immune to her venom. Maybe she already knew. But it rendered my blood unusable that day. My scream also coaxed the mage out of the Oraculum. Skye heard the mage's voice as she spoke to me. It took her a while longer, but eventually she found that mage too." I turned away from Kiran and walked toward the cage. Skye's body was coiling around itself in infinite motion, her head raised and swaying, her tongue flicking. I gazed into Skye's amber eyes, feeling so much love and gratitude and sorrow that emotion threatened to consume me.

"There is nothing she wouldn't do to protect me," I said as I faced the door and grasped the cool iron bar of the handle. "She would break her teeth on the bars. She would attack everyone that stood between us. She would kill the gods themselves to keep her oath to me." I pulled the heavy door open, the rush of incense and alchemy spilling over me. I turned back enough to look at Kiran, his dark brows furrowed, one large hand clasped tightly on the hilt of his sword, the other gripping his golden helmet with white knuckles. I could see the light building in my vision until my violet eyes shone like a cat's. "And if what you said is true, Kiran, that your promise is not to protect the Queen's weapon, nor the kingdom's Diviner, but to protect me, then you are about to fail within an hour of making your vow."

The flickering of the torches seemed to slow. Time seemed to almost halt. I could see Kiran's heavy breath in the rise and fall of the reflections in his armour, my mirrored irises shining back at me, amethyst and otherworldly. His lips parted slightly, his beautiful face looking wounded. Maybe despairing. The ivory blue of his eyes churned with fragments of colour, like an opal.

I gave him a heartbeat more than Skye would ever need, and then I closed the door behind me.